Step ThirtyEight, Return Strong
by moonswirl
Summary: Gleekathon, day 952b: It's Kurt and Santana's first day back at McKinley while Brittany is stuck at home, so they're all they've got.


_Started my daily ficlets to make the hiatus pass, then decided to keep going with a 2nd cycle, and then a 3rd, 4th, etc through 45th cycle. Now cycle 46!_

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_**INTRODUCING "CHEAT SHEET" - **If you want to know ahead of time when a certain series will be updated next, just reassemble the link below and check out the list, save it, print it, bookmark it, whatever you need!  
Go to: gleekathon [dot] tumblr [dot] com [slash] cheatsheet_

_** UPDATED WITH CYCLE 45 CHEAT SHEET ** Check it out to find out about **shift days**! (cycle 46 cheat sheet will be up later)_

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_**This is a shift day [see above].** There was another upload this morning: You'll Find Wonder, chapter 24._

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**"Step Thirty-Eight, Return Strong"  
Kurt, Santana, Brittany - Brittana  
Paper Heart series  
_(all series now listed under the communities tag in my profile)_**

**__**_(day 7 of 7 of Jade's awesome birthday week, and also... Happy Birthday Jade!)_

Stuck in their summer/pregnancy bubble, it had been easy for a while to just forget about things, about classes, about Cheerios, about Glee Club… Now to find themselves back there, it almost felt like it wasn't real, or like it been an eternity since they'd walked those halls and they felt… wrong, strange. Maybe it was because Brittany wasn't there with them, or because they had spent so much time looking out for her and the baby. They were returning to school like they were returning to their lives, like nothing had happened, but it wasn't their old lives, that was gone. Brittany was home, waiting out this last month or so of the pregnancy, all by herself, and they couldn't be with her. At least Kurt and Santana knew they could rely on one another in this, forever the unlikely pair.

"So where are you headed?" Santana snatched Kurt's schedule out of his hand as he pulled it out and he frowned, not even surprised. "French, really?" she shook her head at him.

"Can I have my schedule, please?"

"In a minute," she turned back to the paper. "We've got two classes together today, wow, four tomorrow, one, two again, three…" He took the paper back. "Alright, well I guess I'll see you at lunch," she told him before heading down another hall.

"Yeah… alright, that's… later," he waved, pointlessly.

"Hey!" a voice drew his attention and he turned just in time to come face to face with Tina right before she threw her arms around him and he hugged back in surprise, seeing Mike and Mercedes coming up behind her. "Good to see you," she told him.

"You, too," he replied, smiled when the other two took their turn at hugging him. "It's not like we haven't seen each other," he pointed out.

"No, but this is different," Tina shrugged.

"How's Brittany?" Mike asked.

"Good, she's good, uh, Santana and I spent the night at her house, we watched movies… She was upset about not getting to come back with us today, but…"

"Maybe we can go visit her when the day's over," Mercedes suggested.

"I think she'd like that," Kurt smiled at her.

Soon he was sitting in class, and as much as he tried to focus on his teacher going on about what they would be doing that year, all he did for the length of the period was stare at his phone, like he wanted the screen to light up and announce a message coming in… from her. He had told her if she was ever bored or needed to talk to someone, then she could text him. The fact was he hadn't wanted to leave her either, for the baby, but just as much for her.

They had started off just knowing of one another, then became sort of friends through the Glee Club, but now with this… They had been made to connect, and they had. Today he counted her as one of his best friends. Their situation wasn't normal, but they were making it work. Now she needed him, and as much as he knew he had to go, that she'd be okay, some part of her had just needed someone to stay with her and no one could. He just expected her to write to him before long.

The whole period had gone by without a peep from her, and it had taken the shuffle of people leaving the room for him to realize it was over and he had to get up. In the hall, he moved toward his locker, wondering what she was up to. The closer they got to the due date, the more he would want to know what was happening with them both. He kept thinking they needed to put those guest rooms to use now, even before the baby was born. They weren't a couple, would never be, but this… They needed to be together any way they could, and that way was to share their homes, welcoming one another into them.

Their parents were still adjusting to the idea, but he and Brittany had long discussed how they would manage this. As scattered as the blonde could be at times, her mind was well and focused when it came to their child, and that was part of how they had grown to be so close. They wanted their son to be brought up by both his parents as much as possible, and that meant splitting their time between the Hummel and Pierce homes.

The rest of his morning had gone by in much the same way. He tried, he really did, to not think of her so much and actually concentrate on his classes, since his education was as much part of looking after their son as the home sharing was. He had to think that the lack of messages was a good sign, that Brittany was doing well and didn't need to resort to reaching out to him.

Finally it was lunch, and when Santana had told him that they would see each other then, she wasn't kidding. He was out of class for all of five seconds before she fell in step with him. "Come on, I'm starving," was her greeting.

"Right," he followed. "Have you…"

"… heard from Brittany?" she guessed, and he didn't correct her. "Nothing. She probably fell asleep… reading that book you gave her," she looked to him.

"It's a good book, she'll like it," he insisted.

"Yeah, okay," Santana shrugged as they neared the cafeteria.

He knew why she was sticking around him, even if she wouldn't say it out loud. Every day she was here at McKinley, unless they were in separate classes or sort of on the outs at that particular time, she was always with her, with Brittany, only now… Brittany wasn't here. Now he'd gone and become her proxy for the blonde. He didn't think he'd heard her talk to him so much as he did while they sat to lunch, where he was privy to her impressions of the morning so far, her classes and the people in them. If he had not been able to focus on anything in his class, she had noticed everything in hers. When finally her breath allowed him to slip in a word or two, he looked to her.

"You really miss her, don't you." Santana didn't let too much sift out, nothing above a flicker in the eye as she realigned her posture.

"You're not going to give me another lecture, are you?"

"Now why would I do that?" he asked innocently, and she matched his expression, which they both dropped afterward.

"So how was your morning?" she opened, and he took it.

"I don't know, I kind of missed it," he declared.

"Why?" she frowned. "Were those guys messing with you again?" she asked, looking like she was aiming for a fight. If they messed with him, it was right up there with anyone ever messing with Brittany for her.

"No, none of that," he shook his head. 'Not yet,' he couldn't help but think, and she could see it. "They had the whole summer to get it out of their system, and if that's not enough, I'm sure they'll find something else to latch on to," he shrugged.

Their phones beeped in unison, and their hands snapped in to pick them up so fast it was a wonder neither of them broke a finger in the process. For a moment though, they had worried something might have been wrong with Brittany. Instead, what they found just made them smile. It filled them with the joy they had been lacking, filled them with her heart.

"_Having lunch. Baby does not like carrots. Hope it still likes bunnies or we'll have to throw some toys away. Hug everyone."_

"Don't suppose we could hide those carrots somehow so she'll eat them?" Kurt looked up and Santana shook her head. "I didn't think so. Well, the hugging part we can do. Already got three of them this morning."

"No, I think she does mean 'everyone,'" Santana swirled her finger about, to show 'everyone' in the cafeteria and then some.

"I think she'll be okay if we make… a lot of exceptions," he tilted his head in the general direction of the jocks' table.

"I won't tell her if you don't," Santana agreed.

The afternoon did see the odd text from Brittany, which she always sent to both of them. She would give a quick update here and there on her activities. She informed them of the baby's kicks here and there, which she usually coupled with her interpretation of his likes and dislikes. Their son evidently did not like the neighbor woman who came to check on her mid-afternoon.

When the day ended, it was almost too much to bear how they just wanted to get out of there and get to the Pierce house. It may have been that their lives now revolved in great part around this child about to be born, but they accepted it gladly.

They reached the house and the doorbell got them nothing, so Santana got a hold of the hidden key. It was never in the same place, as Brittany never remembered to put it back in the same place, but Santana could still find it. They let themselves in, followed the sound of the television in the living room to find the blonde sound asleep on the couch, curled up with one arm tucked under her head for support and the other laid protectively over her belly.

"Let her sleep," Kurt reached for the remote and turned the television off.

"I know," Santana frowned, shrugged. She crouched to pick up the novel, which had been left to rest on the ground between the coffee table and the couch. A sheet had been tucked in, to hold the page she imagined, and as she stood back up Santana opened up the book – which was about a third of the way read – to look at the sheet. The side she saw first she recognized to have Kurt's handwriting. "What's this?" she asked, holding it up to him. It took a moment but then he realized what it was and took a step forward.

"I drew that for her, months ago. We were talking about our families, and we used that," he explained. As he did, she looked to the sheet and, as she was holding it up to him, she finally saw that there was writing on the back, too, this time in a handwriting she knew about as well as her own. Standing out on that side was the one name written a different color from the rest, like it had been added at another time… it was her own name. She looked back to the girl sleeping on the couch, and she felt her heart trip up.

"Kurt?" she spoke, still looking to Brittany.

"Yeah?" he asked. She took a breath.

"What was it like? When you told your father, when you told him you were gay?"

THE END

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******A/N: This is a one-shot ficlet, which means that signing up for story alert will not bring you any alerts.  
****In the event of a sequel, the story will be separate from this one. And as chapter stories go, they are  
************always clearly indicated as such [ex: "Days 204-210" in the summary] Thank you!**


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